Hello Goglodytes. In the near future I will be the lucky recipient of a gifted GTX 1080. I currently have a g 4400 processor paired with a GTX 650 titanium. This takes care of all my gaming needs, but it doesn't run any of the super newest high-impact kind of games like The Witcher 3.

I've been reading a lot about how a low and processor paired with a high-end graphics card will bottleneck at the processor which makes sense to me. I'm wondering if it would be better to run a GTX 650 titanium or a GTX 1080 with my processor. Would it cause weird hiccups with the better graphics card that would be less desirable then running with the old graphics card and having everything smooth as butter but not look quite as nice or able to run some of the newer games.

I expect to be getting a new processor around the days of Christmas (probably an i5) or maybe the following Christmas, so I'll be using this graphics card and processor pair for quite some time.

If you have any suspicions or experience I would love to hear from you. Thanks!

Bottlenecking at the processor will just mean that CPU intensive games might not see as much gain in performance as you'd get with a better processor. Unless your computer is already bottlenecked at the CPU, a better graphics card will be better. Worst case scenario for any hiccups, you can just lower the settings, but that graphics card should be a great improvement overall.

Edit: It is possible some older games might hiccup at the new card. Maybe it freaks out when it sees too much VRAM, or defaults to bad settings, but any such issue will be the exception rather than the rule.

That's what I was figuring. I'll put it in when it gets here.

Thanks for the input!

What RWarehall said and make sure your power supply has all the necessary cables and wattage for the GTX 1080.

I got a 1080 recently myself and I LOVE it. I have not looked back. Upgraded from a 660ti

I had a shite processor with a newer card in my last gaming PC and it really did bottleneck some games. Stuff like Borderlands 2 was barely playable while other things like Dragon Age Inquisition were perfectly fine. It all depended on the engine and the processor needs.

Good thing about GPUs though is there's no real future MOBO compatibility worry, so you can use the 1080 with your old CPU now and then upgrade the MOBO/CPU down the line while keeping the 1080 (which should play newer games for a long, long time I bet, given where consoles are at).

I also have a 1080 but a mini ITX version: https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Graphics-Card/GV-N1080IX-8GD#kf.

I got it especially to play Witcher 3 without sacrificing any of the settings on 1080p.

Pairing with a Ryzen 5 2400g, however.